Water main breaks cause headaches throughout Peoria

Wednesday

Feb 12, 2014 at 8:00 PM

Laura Nightengale of the Journal Star

PEORIA — While large water main breaks in the North Valley caused a boil order affecting most of the city and disrupted traffic on heavily traveled streets, smaller water main breaks have plagued residents and crews during this bitterly cold winter.

Mattie Carrigan, who lives on the 1000 block of South Shelley Street, has been one of many residents inconvenienced by a smaller, but much longer lasting main break.

"The leaks started three days ago," Carrigan said.

At South Shelley and West Antoinette streets, water has been flowing from the corner at a consistent rate, making a fourth of the street into somewhat of a lazy river until Wednesday.

"We were trying to walk my granddaughter to the Neighborhood House earlier and we just couldn't walk through it. It was too deep," Carrigan said.

This winter's persistent and bitterly cold weather has increased both the frequency and magnitude of water main breaks, Illinois American Water spokeswoman Karen Cotton said.

Main breaks are up 20 percent this winter compared to last, she said, and include large mains buried deep underground, like the 30-inch main that burst four feet under Jefferson Avenue near Abington Street on Monday.

"Our system just overall is seeing some stress because of the cold temperatures," Cotton said. "Also the water that we're intaking and treating is cold, so it's cold water running through cold mains in the cold grounds. It's just a very challenging system for our crews right now."

As of Wednesday, the main underneath Jefferson had been repaired, Cotton said, but the road remained closed until the damage could be temporarily patched.

A main break near the Adams Street and Jefferson split, however, would likely require longer maintenance. The break, which occurred Tuesday, is in the same main as the break near Jefferson and Abington.

While multiple agencies are involved in responding to an event such as a major water main break — the city for managing icy conditions and the Illinois Department of Transportation for detours, for example — the water company foots the bill for any repairs necessitated by the break.

Permanent repairs to streets such as Adams and Jefferson won't happen until temperatures are above freezing consistently.

The most immediate concern of the city is managing the icy road conditions that come with water flowing onto cold streets.

"Since the river's frozen we're not getting any more salt," city engineer Scott Reeise said. "It's taking away from our salt supply that we would be saving up for a weather event."

Laura Nightengale can be reached at 686-3181 or lnightengale@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @lauranight. Zach Berg contributed to this story.